New ABA Member Service

Member clubs can take advantage of
the Association’s Hosting Service

by Jack “FROSTY” Frost
Corvette City Bop Club; Bowling Green, Kentucky

The A.B.A. encourages each club to jump in there with their own website, if that’s what they want to do. The official A.B.A. site will continue to link to each and every club in the Association. It is not, nor will ever be, the Association’s intent to replace or circumvent our member clubs. But those clubs who don’t yet have a site, or can’t keep a webmaster in place to maintain it, may want to read on to get the details of what we’re offering through the A.B.A.

Many member clubs already have wonderful websites. Most are expertly maintained locally, by someone in their respective clubs. However, we have noticed that there are a few clubs who, either have never yet obtained a web presence, or may be having a hard time keeping a local webmaster in place. It is for these clubs that the Association would like to detail the service we are offering.

Owning a domain is the first step, but then you've got to have it "hosted" somewhere, then someone must make periodic changes to keep it current and interesting. Putting pictures on a site has no additional cost and helps keep existing members coming back month after month - everybody likes to keep up with their 15 minutes of "fame" :-). It does take a little time to keep a site up to date, so that's why I'm trying to help both member clubs, and the ABA, by doing the work and letting the ABA have the revenue. Once a month, I'll upload any changes - like the month's lesson calendar, special events, & pictures - while removing the expired month and old events/pictures. Check out www.corvettecitybopclub.org for an example.

If your club has someone with the time and skills to do the site you've already got, by all means -git-r-done- :-). We just know that some clubs haven't been able to get an internet presence for one reason or another, and felt that this service - through the ABA - would help the clubs, while raising a little revenue for the ABA in the process.

If you already have a site, your club can:

If your club doesn’t want to bother with it’s own domain, and just wants me to place it on the A.B.A. site, that’s even easier. The cost is the same. With the former, you retain that direct connection, with the latter, the connection requires a stop at the A.B.A. home page before going directly to your pages on the Associations site.

If your clubs decides to have me assume responsiblity for your club’s existing site, or to create or design a new site as additional pages to the A.B.A. site; just drop a check for $100 in the mail payable to the A.B.A. and addressed to: c/o the treasurer, Jo Reynolds; 7122 Greenbriar Drive; Southhaven, MS 38671; and then e-mail me the user name and password for the site hosting service; send me the update information and I'll take care of the rest.